Re: Please use a free license for blimps and sift
Dear Pauline,
On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 10:50:04AM +0800, Pauline Ng wrote:
> I've asked Steve Henikoff to check with FHCRC's Technology Transfer office
> to see if we can change the license to GNU-GPL. (The latest version of SIFT
> (SIFT 4 Genomes is a hybrid license of GNU-GPL and FHCRC), so this will
> simplify things later. Please email me in 2 weeks time if you haven't heard
> from me.
Thanks for the promising response and the coordination work you probably
need to undergo for such a change.
> Also, because I wrote the SIFT algorithm, I'd like to benchmark and check
> the code that debian-med packages. I think there are several version of
> SIFT out there. What is the latest release version that you'd like to use?
Usually we are packaging the latest upstream release. If you have good
reasons for recommending a different release we would trust your insight
what might be the best release for Debian. Please do not consider us as
the experts to decide about *your* code. ;-) We simply try to distribute
your prefered choice to your users in a most convenient form.
> Thanks,
> Pauline
Thanks to you
Andreas.
> On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 3:25 PM, Andreas Tille <andreas@an3as.eu> wrote:
>
> > Dear Pauline,
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 09:59:14AM +0800, Pauline Ng wrote:
> > > The Henikoffs and I received your email about regarding changing the
> > > license of blimps and SIFT to GPL. We are willing to consider it if SIFT
> > > can be easily distributed. Do you have a working version of SIFT on
> > > debian?
> >
> > Currently version 4.0.3b is packaged and I know that this is not the
> > latest released version. One reason for this lag behind is the fact
> > that SIFT remains in non-free which does not receive the apropriate care
> > - thus the motivation for my mail to tackle the latest version if there
> > would be a free license.
> >
> > > My old version of SIFT uses a very old version of blast and calls a
> > binary
> > > of blimps --I think the source code has been since lost.
> >
> > The Debian version of SIFT is linked against a separately packaged
> > version of blimps 3.9. I noticed that the downloadable tarball
> > sift5.2.2.tar.gz contains a dir blimps/blimps with C sources (and even
> > *.o files which should not be distributed inside a tarball). I also see
> > a dir blimps/bin which we would clean up from the tarball since we
> > usually do not ship precompiled binaries in the source tarball.
> >
> > > If you can can confirm that SIFT works in debian, then Dr. Henikoff will
> > > talk to the FHCRC tech transfer office to start the process.
> >
> > I can confirm that the Debian Med team got the old version of SIFT
> > working and we will try or best to get also the latest version working.
> > However, please make sure that the license change is not only for the
> > purpose of distribution inside Debian but rather in general since a
> > specific free Debian license is also considered as non-free by the
> > Debian Free Software Guidelines.
> >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Pauline
> >
> > Thanks a lot for your fast response
> >
> > Andreas.
> >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I'm writing you on behalf of the Debian Med team which is a group inside
> > > Debian with the objective to make Debian the best distribution for
> > biology
> > > and medical care. We try to package free software that is relevant in
> > > these fields for main Debian.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > You might know that there are packages of blimps and sift for some time
> > > which are not part of the official Debian distribution due to its license
> > > which is considered non-free since it violates the Debian Free Software
> > > Guidelines[1]. We would really make blimps and sift part of the official
> > > Debian distribution which has several advantages for users as well even
> > for
> > > you as developers since the wider spreading of your code might lead to
> > > enhancements that will be send to you.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > We would like you to reconsider the restriction under the following
> > >
> > > considerations:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > - Did you earned a mentionable amount of money by selling mssstest
> > >
> > > yourself?
> > >
> > > - Do you consider that anybody else would earn a mentionable amount
> > >
> > > of money by selling a freely licensed program?
> > >
> > > - Would you agree that it is in the interest of mssstest code and
> > >
> > > the users to have a free distribution inside Debian?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Please keep in mind that the restriction implies that the programs cannot
> > > be included as part of a distribution that is sold (even if it's just to
> > > compensate for the cost of the storage media). Your intention is almost
> > > certainly to prevent people to sell the program standalone.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > To our experience authors who used this kind of license (for instance Joe
> > > Felsenstein as author of PHYLIP) did not considered this as a success.
> > May
> > > be you reconsider the license to choose some free license like GPL; BSD
> > or
> > > MPL - feel free to discuss this here on our mailing list.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > It would be great if you would simply drop the restriction and enable us
> > to
> > > integrate blimps and sift into Debian properly.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Kind regards
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Andreas.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > [1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > http://fam-tille.de
> >
> > --
> > http://fam-tille.de
> >
--
http://fam-tille.de
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